Since the domestication of animals, in general, humans have taken upon themselves the care and maintenance of a variety of living things. Such living things include, for example, animals, birds and insects. Often, people desire to provide care and maintenance for wildlife, such as wild birds, wherein either feeding stations or houses are provided for the birds. As such, a wide variety of feeders and nesting facilities have been developed and employed in the past. In some cases, these feeders and nesting facilities are suspended from a support member such as a tree branch or a structural beam.
Where feeding stations, e.g. birdfeeders, are provided for living things, such feeding stations typically are in the form of a receptacle that includes a food reservoir for containing solid or liquid nourishment. An access opening is provided to allow access for filling the reservoir, and a lid is typically provided to close the reservoir after it has been filled. One disadvantage in many prior art structures is that the receptacle must be taken down from its support in order to refill the reservoir. Moreover, the connecting structures of the lid to the housing are sometimes unwieldy, especially where a large feeding receptacle is employed. Therefore, a more convenient structure for interconnecting a lid to a receptacle is useful and would provide advantages over the prior art when the lid structure is easily moveable between open and closed positions.
Accordingly, there remains a need to provide a new and improved receptacles for the care and maintenance of living things, such as bird houses, bird feeders, insect feeders, bird baths and the like. The present invention is directed to meeting these needs by providing a locking finial that secures a lid to a housing to form the receptacle.